On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Clay Wirestone, the opinion editor of the Kansas Reflector, a digital nonprofit that’s part of the States Newsroom network. His first book was published Sept. 29. It’s called, aptly enough, “Opinionated: Kansas Journalists Who Proved Why Commentary Matters — Then and Now.” His second is scheduled for 2028.
Wirestone seems to be on a first-name basis with Kansas opinion journalists past and present, and he profiles a number of them. He knows the state well: he graduated from the University of Kansas and lives in Lawrence with his husband. He also edited news at The Topeka Capital-Journal and spent more than a decade at New Hampshire’s Concord Monitor, where he worked with my Northeastern colleague Meg Heckman, a past guest on this podcast.
I’ve got a Quick Take about yet another new book — “Deserted: Life Without Local News in Rural America,” by Nick Mathews. I reviewed it recently for The Arts Fuse. Mathews offers some interesting insights into what happens to community life when there’s a shortage of reliable news and information.
Ellen’s Quick Take is on an excellent Substack post by media observer Richard J. Tofel on the recent massacre at the McClatchy newspaper chain, which is being gutted by its private-equity owner. It’s like a slasher movie, and the slasher has come for newspapers that were great in their heyday.
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